Digital Humanities – Page 8

Journal of Digital Humanities Launched

The first issue of the Journal of Digital Humanities has been published by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.

Here's an excerpt from the "A Community-Sourced Journal":

We're pleased to present the inaugural issue of the Journal of Digital Humanities, which represents the best of the work that was posted online by the community of digital humanities scholars and practitioners in the final three months of 2011. . . .

The works in this issue were first highlighted on the Digital Humanities Now site and its related feeds. . . .

Once highlighted as an "Editors' Choice" on Digital Humanities Now, works were eligible for inclusion in the Journal of Digital Humanities. By looking at a range of qualitative and quantitative measures of quality, from the kinds of responses a work engendered, to the breadth of the community who felt it was worth their time to examine a work, to close reading and analyses of merit by the editorial board and others, we were able to produce the final list of works. For the inaugural issue, more than 15,000 items published or shared by the digital humanities community last quarter were reviewed for Digital Humanities Now. Of these, 85 were selected as Editors' Choices, and from these 85 the ones that most influenced the community, as measured by interest, transmission, and response, have been selected for formal publication in the Journal. The digital humanities community participated further in the review process through open peer review of the pieces selected for the Journal. Authors selected for inclusion were given time to revise their work to answer criticisms and suggestions from the community and editors, prior to a round of careful editing to avoid typographical errors and other minor mistakes.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them—providing the ideal quality control." — Péter Jacsó ONLINE 27, no. 3 (2003): 73-76. | Digital Scholarship |

NEH Announces New Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant Recipients

The National Endowment for the Humanities's Office of Digital Humanities has announced the recipients of 22 new Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants.

The announcement was part of a larger announcement of $17 million in grants for 208 humanities projects. A state-by-state list of these grants is available.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

"Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences"

Nicholas W. Jankowski, Andrea Scharnhorst, Clifford Tatum, and Zuotian Tatum have self-archived "Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Enhancing publications has a long history but is gaining acceleration as authors and publishers explore electronic tablets as devices for dissemination and presentation. Enhancement of scholarly publications, in contrast, more often takes place in a Web environment and is coupled with presentation of supplementary materials related to research. The approach to enhancing scholarly publications presented in this article goes a step further and involves the interlinking of the "objects" of a document: datasets, supplementary materials, secondary analyses, and post-publication interventions. This approach connects the user-centricity of Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web. It aims at facilitating long-term content structure through standardized formats intended to improve interoperability between concepts and terms within and across knowledge domains. We explored this conception of enhancement on a small set of books prepared for traditional academic publishers. While the project was primarily an exercise in development, the conclusion section of the article reflects on areas where conceptual and empirical studies could be initiated to complement this new direction in scholarly publishing.

For related information, see the SURF Enhancing Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences project website.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

Google Digital Humanities Awards Recipient Interviews Report

Virgil E.Varvel, Jr. and Andrea Thomer have self-archived the Google Digital Humanities Awards Recipient Interviews Report in IDEALS.

Here's an excerpt:

As input into the development, design, and improvement of the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC), recipients of Google's Digital Humanities Grants were interviewed to identify issues encountered during their projects. This project was guided by the following goals:

Increase empirical understanding of how to identify materials for use by scholars.

Increase empirical understanding of how to provide better access to materials for use by scholars.

Identify meaningful characteristics of content that affect identification, retrieval, and other parameters.

Identify data preprocessing and transformation issues encountered by scholars.

Provide input to inform the architecture of the HTRC related to representation of collections, faceted browsing, identifiers, etc.

|Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

NEH Office of Digital Humanities Releases Videos of 2011 Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant Project Directors’ Presentations

The NEH's Office of Digital Humanities has released short videos of project directors of 2011 Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants discussing their projects.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

We're happy to say that we now have videos from the annual Office of Digital Humanities Project Directors Meeting, held September 27, 2011 at the Old Post Office in Washington, DC. This meeting brought together top researchers in the digital humanities from across the United States.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Ithaka S+R Research Support Services for Scholars: History Project. Interim Report: Interviews with Research Support Professionals

Ithaka S+R has released the Ithaka S+R Research Support Services for Scholars: History Project. Interim Report: Interviews with Research Support Professionals.

Here's an excerpt:

Funded by the NEH, Ithaka S+R’s History Project, part of the Research Support Services for Scholars Program, will explore the information support needs and changing research practices of academic historians in the United States. The evolution of technology and its impact on scholarship in the humanities has sparked and sustained the wide-spread Digital Humanities movement. Historians in particular have engaged new technologies, and the subsequently enabled research methodologies and publication platforms are transforming the field. Consequently, many support service providers would like to better understand the evolving practices of historians and adapt their services to facilitate these new processes.

For the first phase of the Research Support Services for Scholars History Project, Ithaka S+R interviewed professionals who work in support of the scholarly life cycle of historians. Before interviewing faculty directly, it was important to establish an understanding of the breadth of support available to history faculty on campus, as well as the environment and institutions that support their research from concept to publication. The goal for this set of interviews was to explore the different types of service models currently engaged for supporting history research on campus and the challenges that research support professionals are facing in today’s rapidly evolving research environment.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Journal of Digital Humanities to Launch in March

The Journal of Digital Humanities will launch this March.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Digital Humanities Now is pleased to announce the Journal of Digital Humanities (ISSN 2165-6673), forthcoming in March 2012. In this comprehensive, peer-reviewed journal we will feature the best scholarship, projects, and tools produced by the digital humanities community in the previous quarter.

The Journal of Digital Humanities will offer expanded coverage of the digital humanities in three ways. First, we publish scholarly work beyond the traditional research article. Second, we select content from open and public discussions in the field. Third, we encourage continued discussion through peer-to-peer review.

The journal will be comprised of individual works that were selected as Editors' Choice in Digital Humanities Now. These works range from written texts, to visual arguments, to audio-visual presentations. In order to promote the peer review of non-traditional scholarship, each issue will include solicited reviews of digital tools. When the community focuses extensively on a particular topic, a special section of the issue will feature the broader conversation. In our inaugural issue, Natalia Cecire, a postdoctoral fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University, will introduce and guest edit a special section about theory and the digital humanities.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

CLIR and NITLE Will Launch Anvil Academic, a "Digital Publisher for the Humanities"

The Council on Library and Information Resources and the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education will launch Anvil Academic, a "digital publisher for the humanities," in late 2012.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

Anvil will focus on publishing new forms of scholarship that cannot be adequately conveyed in the traditional monograph.

"Increasingly, research in the humanities is dependent on large data sets and involves sophisticated algorithms and visualizations in the execution of that research and in the construction of the products of scholarship. Anvil will capture the environment in which this research is conducted: a linked ecology of scholarly expression, data, and tools of analysis that will over time become itself a place for new knowledge discovery," said CLIR President Chuck Henry.

Works published through Anvil will be available through Creative Commons licenses on the Web and as apps on portable devices. The title production system will be developed jointly by NITLE and CLIR for use by other institutions, each of which would have the opportunity to publish under its own imprint. . . .

"An important part of the Anvil experiment will be developing and testing new revenue models," said NITLE Executive Director Joey King. "Our current models, which rely heavily on institutional subsidies, author subventions, and revenue from sales of printed books, are not proving to be sustainable. With Anvil, we intend to explore alternative paths to sustainability as rigorously as we explore new publishing models."

The program received startup funding from the Brown Foundation, Inc., in Houston, Texas. Stanford University, the University of Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, Bryn Mawr College, Amherst College, Middlebury College, and Southwestern University will also provide funds and staffing. Anvil Academic Publishing will work closely with innovative programs developed by the University of Michigan, especially MPublishing, and draw on Johns Hopkins University's exemplary experience with digital humanities project development.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Humanities, SPEC Kit 326

The Association of Research Libraries has released the Digital Humanities, SPEC Kit 326.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published Digital Humanities, SPEC Kit 326, which provides a snapshot of research library experiences with digital scholarship centers or services that support the humanities (e.g., history, art, music, film, literature, philosophy, religion, etc.) and the benefits and challenges of hosting them. The survey asked ARL libraries about the organization of these services, how they are staffed and funded, what services they offer and to whom, what technical infrastructure is provided, whether the library manages or archives the digital resources produced, and how services are assessed, among other questions. . . .

The table of contents and executive summary from this SPEC Kit are available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec-326-web.pdf.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Research Infrastructures in the Digital Humanities

The European Science Foundation has released Research Infrastructures in the Digital Humanities.

Here's an excerpt:

This peer reviewed document reflects on the centrality of Research Infrastructures (RIs) to the Humanities. It argues that without RIs such as archives, libraries, academies, museums and galleries (and the sources that they identify, order, preserve and make accessible) significant strands of Humanities research would not be possible. After proposing a wide-ranging definition of digital RIs—with the aim of reflecting on the meaning of infrastructure in the Humanities rather than on those parts common to other domains of science—it attempts to relate physical RIs to digital ones. By drawing on a number of case studies—chosen to showcase the variety of research around existing or emerging infrastructures—it demonstrates that digital RIs offer Humanities scholars new and productive ways to explore old questions and develop new ones.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

"Getting Started in the Digital Humanities"

Lisa Spiro has published "Getting Started in the Digital Humanities" in her Digital Scholarship in the Humanities blog. This useful post is very detailed.

Here's an excerpt:

Last week I presented at the Great Lakes College Association's New Directions workshop on digital humanities (DH), where I tried to answer the question "Why the digital humanities?" But I discovered that an equally important question is "How do you do the digital humanities"? Although participants seemed to be excited about the potential of digital humanities, some weren't sure how to get started and where to go for support and training.

Building on the slides I presented at the workshop, I'd like to offer some ideas for how a newcomer might get acquainted with the community and dive into DH work. I should emphasize that many in the DH community are to some extent self-taught and/or gained their knowledge through work on projects rather than through formal training.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

"Rome Wasn’t Digitized in a Day": Building a Cyberinfrastructure for Digital Classicists

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released "Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day": Building a Cyberinfrastructure for Digital Classicists.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The author provides a summative and recent overview of the use of digital technologies in classical studies, focusing on classical Greece, Rome, and the ancient Middle and Near East, and generally on the period up to about 600 AD. The report explores what projects exist and how they are used, examines the infrastructure that currently exists to support digital classics as a discipline, and investigates larger humanities cyberinfrastructure projects and existing tools or services that might be repurposed for the digital classics.

| Digital Scholarship |

New NEH Grant Program: Digital Humanities Implementation Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities' Office of Digital Humanities has announced a new grant program—Digital Humanities Implementation Grants.

Here's an excerpt from the guidelines:

This program is designed to fund the implementation of innovative digital-humanities projects that have successfully completed a start-up phase and demonstrated their value to the field. Such projects might enhance our understanding of central problems in the humanities, raise new questions in the humanities, or develop new digital applications and approaches for use in the humanities. The program can support innovative digital-humanities projects that address multiple audiences, including scholars, teachers, librarians, and the public. Applications from recipients of NEH's Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants are welcome.

Unlike NEH's start-up grant program, which emphasizes basic research, prototyping, experimentation, and potential impact, the Digital Humanities Implementation Grants program seeks to identify projects that have successfully completed their start-up phase and are well positioned to have a major impact.

Proposals are welcome for digital initiatives in any area of the humanities. Digital Humanities Implementation Grants may involve:

implementation of computationally-based methods or techniques for humanities research;

implementation of new digital tools for use in humanities research, public programming, or educational settings;

efforts to ensure the completion and long-term sustainability of existing digital resources (typically in conjunction with a library or archive);

studies that examine the philosophical or practical implications of the use of emerging technologies in specific fields or disciplines of the humanities, or in interdisciplinary collaborations involving several fields or disciplines; or

implementation of new digital modes of scholarly communication that facilitate peer review, collaboration, or the dissemination of humanities scholarship for various audiences.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography | Google Books Bibliography | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

NEH Awards $300,000 to the Shelley-Godwin Archive

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a grant of $300,000 to the Shelley-Godwin Archive.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a grant of $300,000 to the Shelley-Godwin Archive, a digital resource comprising works of Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Humanities scholars, curators, and information scientists from The New York Public Library (NYPL), the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford, the Houghton Library of Harvard University, the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, and the British Library will collaborate on the archive's creation. They will be led by Elizabeth C. Denlinger, Curator of the Pforzheimer Collection of the NYPL. Neil Fraistat, director of MITH, a renowned scholar in both the digital humanities and Shelley studies, will act as co-Principal Investigator.

The Shelley-Godwin Archive will draw primarily from the two foremost collections of these materials, those of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle at NYPL, which together hold an estimated 90 percent of all known relevant manuscripts worldwide. With the Archive’s creation, manuscripts and early editions of these writers will be made freely available to the public through an innovative framework constituting a new model of best practice for research libraries. First among these is the manuscript of Mary Shelley's iconic novel of 1818, Frankenstein; and second will be the working notebooks of P.B. Shelley, which are scattered amongst the five partner institutions from California to England. MITH will create the project’s infrastructure with the assistance of the New York Public Library’s digital humanities group, NYPL Labs.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

NEH Office of Digital Humanities Awards 22 New Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants

The NEH Office of Digital Humanities has awarded 22 Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement.

The Office of Digital Humanities is happy to announce twenty-two new awards from our Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant program from our October 5, 2010 deadline. These awards are part of a larger slate of 216 grants just announced by the NEH.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Grants Available

The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced the availability of Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grants. The maximum award is $350,000 (up to three years). The deadline is July 20, 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program supports projects that provide an essential foundation for scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. Thousands of libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country maintain important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, and digital objects. Funding from this program strengthens efforts to extend the life of such materials and make their intellectual content widely accessible, often through the use of digital technology. Awards are also made to create various reference resources that facilitate use of cultural materials, from works that provide basic information quickly to tools that synthesize and codify knowledge of a subject for in-depth investigation.

Applications may be submitted for projects that address one or more of the following activities:

arranging and describing archival and manuscript collections;

cataloging collections of printed works, photographs, recorded sound, moving images, art, and material culture;

providing conservation treatment (including deacidification) for collections, leading to enhanced access;

digitizing collections;

preserving and improving access to born-digital sources;

developing databases, virtual collections, or other electronic resources to codify information on a subject or to provide integrated access to selected humanities materials;

creating encyclopedias;

preparing linguistic tools, such as historical and etymological dictionaries, corpora, and reference grammars (separate funding is available for endangered language projects in partnership with the National Science Foundation);

developing tools for spatial analysis and representation of humanities data, such as atlases and geographic information systems (GIS); and

designing digital tools to facilitate use of humanities resources.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Reinventing Research? Information Practices in the Humanities

The Research Information Network has released Reinventing Research? Information Practices in the Humanities.

Here's an excerpt:

Humanities scholars are often perceived in very traditional terms: spending a lot of time working on their own and collaborating only informally through highly-dispersed networks. Unlike most scientists, they have no long tradition of working in formal, close-knit and collaborative research groups. Humanities scholars have also sometimes been presented as "depth" rather than "breadth" researchers, preferring to spend significant amounts of time with a few items, rather than working across a broader frame. In terms of information sources, text and images held in archives and libraries tend to dominate, with less of an association with new web-based technologies (although this is changing with the increasing visibility of digital humanities).

This report suggests that such perceptions may be out of date. In each of our case studies we found researchers working with new tools and technologies, in increasingly collaborative environments, and both producing and using information resources in diverse ways. There is a richness and variety within humanities information practices which must be recognised and understood if we are to provide the right kind of support for researchers.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Grants: Second Round of Digging into Data Challenge Announced

The National Endowment for the Humanities and seven international research funders have announced the second round of the Digging into Data Challenge. Grant applications are due by June 16, 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Digging into Data Challenge asks researchers these provocative questions: How can we use advanced computation to change the nature of our research methods? That is, now that the objects of study for researchers in the humanities and social sciences, including books, survey data, economic data, newspapers, music, and other scholarly and scientific resources are being digitized at a huge scale, how does this change the very nature of our research? How might advanced computation and data analysis techniques help researchers use these materials to ask new questions about and gain new insights into our world? . . .

Due to the overwhelming popularity of round one, the Digging into Data Challenge is pleased to announce that four additional funders have joined for round two, enabling this competition to have a world-wide reach into many different scholarly and scientific domains. The eight sponsoring funding bodies include the Arts & Humanities Research Council (United Kingdom), the Economic & Social Research Council (United Kingdom), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (United States), the Joint Information Systems Committee (United Kingdom), the National Endowment for the Humanities (United States), the National Science Foundation (United States), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (Netherlands), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada).

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications |

NEH Issues Call for Proposals for Preservation and Access Research and Development Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities's Division of Preservation and Access has issued a call for proposals for Preservation and Access Research and Development grants. Application deadline: May 19, 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Eligible projects include:

the development of technical standards, best practices, and tools for preserving and creating access to humanities collections;

the exploration of more effective scientific and technical methods of preserving humanities collections;

the development of automated procedures and computational tools to integrate, analyze, and repurpose humanities data in disparate online resources; and

the investigation and testing of new ways of providing digital access to humanities materials that are not easily digitized using current methods.

NEH especially encourages applications that address the following topics:

Digital Preservation: how to preserve digital humanities materials, including born-digital materials, for which there is no analog counterpart;

Recorded Sound and Moving Image Collections: how to preserve and increase access to the record of the twentieth century contained in these formats; and

Preventive Conservation: how to protect humanities collections and slow their deterioration through the use of sustainable preservation strategies.. . .

The maximum award is $350,000 for up to three years. Applicants whose projects focus on any of the three areas of special interest noted above may request up to $400,000.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications |

Lasting Change: Sustaining Digital Scholarship and Culture in Canada

The Sustaining Digital Scholarship for Sustainable Culture Group has released Lasting Change: Sustaining Digital Scholarship and Culture in Canada.

Here's an excerpt:

This report reflects the growing concern in the scholarly and cultural communities, and beyond, regarding the sustainability of Canada's digital knowledge and heritage. Canada's digital advantage is only of value if it can be carried into the future. Canadians must meet the challenge of preserving and enhancing scholarly and artistic knowledge production and our culture in a digital environment. This report reviews the current state of knowledge about the sustainability of digital scholarship and related cultural activity in Canada and identifies research opportunities that emerge from consideration of the literature.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Text-Image Linking Environment (TILE) 0.9 Released

the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and Indiana University have released the Text-Image Linking Environment (TILE) 0.9.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

We’re excited to announce the redesigned website for and public release of The Text-Image Linking Environment (TILE), a web-based tool for creating and editing image-based electronic editions and digital archives of humanities texts. This initial release of TILE 0.9 features tools for importing and exporting transcript lines and images of text, an image markup tool, a semi-automated line recognizer that tags regions of text within an image, and plugin architecture to extend the functionality of the software.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Library of Congress Funds Omeka + Neatline Project

The Library of Congress has awarded $665,248 in funding to the Omeka + Neatline project.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Scholars' Lab at the University of Virginia Library and the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University are pleased to announce a collaborative "Omeka + Neatline" initiative, supported by $665,248 in funding from the Library of Congress.

The Omeka + Neatline project's goal is to enable scholars, students, and library and museum professionals to create geospatial and temporal visualizations of archival collections using a Neatline toolset within CHNM's popular, open source Omeka exhibition platform. Neatline, a "contribution to interpretive humanities scholarship in the visual vernacular," is a project of the UVa Library Scholars' Lab, originally bolstered by a Start-Up Grant from the Office of Digital Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Omeka is an award-winning web-publishing platform for the display of cultural heritage and scholarly collections and exhibits, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

This two-year initiative will allow CHNM and the Scholars' Lab to expand and regularize a partnership that developed informally between the two centers over the course of the past year. Collaboration has already resulted in improvements to the core functionality of Omeka by CHNM and has led the Scholars' Lab to produce a number of prototype plugins making Omeka a more attractive and viable option for scholarly partnerships with larger libraries and cultural heritage institutions. These include: improved data import (including EAD, a common archival standard); Solr-powered searching and browsing; and Fedora-based repository services. Further development will improve existing plugins, add preservation workflows, and refine the Neatline toolset for integration and sophisticated editing and scholarly annotation of historical maps, GIS layers, and timelines. Enhancements to Omeka's core APIs, improved documentation, regular "point" releases, and a new Exhibit Builder will strengthen Omeka's already large and robust user and developer communities.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Action Alert: H.R. 408 Would Eliminate National Endowment for the Humanities

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has introduced H.R. 408, the Spending Reduction Act of 2011, which would eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced similar legislation (S. 178) in the Senate.

The National Humanities Alliance has posted two items about this issue: "Republican Study Committee Leaders Unveil Spending Reduction Act of 2011" and, on the DuraSpace Blog, "Proposal to Eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities in U.S. Congress."

You can use the NHA's Legislative Action Center Contact Form to send messages to your Congressional representatives. The form includes suggested bullet points that you can include in your message.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Scholarly Communication Institute 8: Emerging Genres in Scholarly Communication

The Scholarly Communication Institute at the University of Virginia has released Scholarly Communication Institute 8: Emerging Genres in Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

The following essay attempts to represent and synthesize the rich discussions of SCI 8, the eighth gathering of the Scholarly Communication Institute at the University of Virginia Library, especially the many original insights that emerged into the ways technology transforms the process of creation, dissemination, stewardship, use, and above all, reception of humanities scholarship.. . .

As in other areas of publishing—music, movies, television, fiction, journalism— the Web has effectively unbundled the production and consumption of scholarship. It has also simultaneously undermined publishing business models and library budgets, radically altered reading habits, and called into question the core assumptions upon which scholarship is assessed and validated. How will the fundamental processes of scholarly production—research and analysis, publication and dissemination, stewardship, and use—realign themselves in a digital environment? How will scholars go from digital evidence to digital publication? What would be an appropriate division of labor among the actors in scholarly communication: scholars and learned societies; libraries, museums, archives; publishers; technologists; higher education administration and funders; and the multiple audiences and users who desire online access to humanities content? Where are these new communities constituted, how, and by whom?

We explored these issues in several stages, which included:

scanning trends both within higher education and beyond that are shaping scholarly discourses;

examining the processes of scholarly communication as currently constituted, as well as actors involved and the roles they play;

presenting working examples of new-model scholarship by participants; and

reflecting on these topics from the perspective of the critical engines sustaining scholarly communication—libraries, publishers, technologists, academic administrators, and funders.

The CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide

The CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative has released The CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Presenting a well-researched and annotated view of the field, the guide will serve as a broad introduction to DH for newcomers by offering a balanced archive of best practices, ongoing projects, and disciplinary debates.

The guide covers a wide range of subjects, including Defining the Digital Humanities, Hot Topics, Sample Projects, DH Syllabi, and Conferences and Events. Check out the Table of Contents for the full range of topics.